


Mascot

by orphan_account



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Gen, adorable dogs and socially inept humans, chuck does not really understand, that cuddling max detracts from the effectiveness of his death glares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-19
Updated: 2013-10-19
Packaged: 2017-12-29 21:13:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1010166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Max came to be Striker Eureka's mascot.</p><p>Or: having daddy issues, being socially inept, having your dog as a best friend, not understanding why you're jealous, and fundamentally misunderstanding others' perceptions of you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mascot

Chuck kind of hates the Sydney Shatterdome.

 

He’s pretty sure that people gossip about him. Whisper, whisper, and then he looks round and stares them down for a minute, challenging them to actually say whatever it is to his face. Nobody ever speaks up, though. They just stare back, and then when he turns around—giggle, whisper.

 

He figures maybe they’re talking about why his uncle stopped piloting. Or maybe they’re comparing him to his dad—veteran Mark I pilot, hero, yeah, whatever. He used to think they were saying he was too young, but he’s got three kills under his own belt now and the whispers haven’t stopped.

 

Fuck ‘em all. At least he’s got Max. Even if Max, the traitor, would willingly cuddle with any total stranger just as willingly as he’d cuddle with Chuck.

 

“You don’t judge people, do you?” Chuck asks Max one day during walkies when Max is sniffing at nothing by the side of the scrubby road that leads to the Shatterdome gates.

 

Max, who is just out of puppy-hood, is about as smart the rocks he’s sniffing. Striker Eureka is probably more intelligent. Max can do about two things: a), slobbery cuddles, and b), homing beacon, a.k.a. waddling joyfully across the floor to Chuck when he emerges from Striker Eureka/a meeting/the shower/etc.

 

Sometimes Chuck kind of appreciates that.

 

One day Mako Mori and Marshall Pentecost arrive for some kind of official conference with Chuck’s dad and the other bigwigs about the coastal wall program. Chuck is not invited, nor does he want to go. He knows Mako in the sense that she’s been in a lot of places that he’s been in, but they aren’t really friends, even though a lot of people expect them to be.

 

It’s not fair. He’s a Jaeger pilot, and she wants to be one, but he still feels like he got the raw end of the deal. At least Pentecost _likes_ her.

 

Chuck’s dad even takes Max when he takes Pentecost and Mako out for dinner after to catch up. Chuck’s dad seems to think he’s kind of like Mako’s uncle, even though Pentecost has never even shown the slightest interest in Chuck’s wellbeing. And Max loves Mako, of course. Chuck’s dad starts to ask Chuck something about going and being polite to Mako and Chuck closes the door in his face; he’d rather eat alone.

 

However, when Chuck goes into the canteen that evening to get dinner, something’s strange. It takes a minute before he notices: people aren’t whispering. At least, not as much.

 

What the hell?

 

He eats his dinner alone, pretending to be absorbed in some piece of paperwork, and still: it’s quiet.

 

Chuck’s dad and Pentecost and Mako and Max come back that evening, all convivial. Chuck retrieves Max and goes to check on Striker, a.k.a. to sit on one of Striker’s feet and play fetch with Max. Max has a fetching distance of about three feet, but Chuck doesn’t feel like walking around, so that’s fine. Repetitive, but fine.

 

A group of techs go by and—fuck, there it is again. Whisper, whisper.

 

“What?” Chuck shouts out to them, standing up with the slobbery tennis ball in his hand. Max draws close to his feet, vaguely unsettled. “What is your problem?”

 

“Nothing,” one of them says, and they disappear.

 

The next day, Mako is gone and there’s a piece of graffiti on the wall by the lot for the PPDC Jeeps. Chuck only catches wind of it via an odd shred of ghost-drifting from his dad, but as soon as he can he shoulders his way through the hallways to go see it.

 

It’s him, obviously. A cartoon of him, maybe looking kind of pissed off, sitting down, with Max on his lap. Yeah, looks like him on any given day. Could be much worse, actually; it’s not really that insulting. He doesn’t really get the point of it.

 

He’s standing and staring at the graffiti on the wall, baseball cap on and arms folded, when a car door slams behind him and a voice exclaims: “Aww!”

 

“What?” Chuck says, spinning around.

 

“Oh, uh,” says the woman behind him. She’s one of the pilot candidates, he thinks. And obviously, she didn’t know who he was. “I just meant, your dog is really cute. In the picture, and real life, actually.”

 

Chuck kind of frowns. He looks back at the picture. He guesses Max is drawn looking cute; his tongue is hanging out, like it always does.

 

“Can I pet him?” the woman says.

 

Before Chuck can even answer, Max has rushed over, pulling the leash taut, to be petted by this total stranger. “Hi, little guy!” the woman says, scrunching Max’s rolls of chubbiness.

 

After the woman finally leaves, Chuck goes to his dad and says, “I want Max to be our mascot.”

 

“What?” says Chuck’s dad, looking up from his desk.

 

“I want. Max. To be. Striker’s mascot,” Chuck says.

 

Chuck’s dad looks slightly confused. “Yeah, all right,” he says.

 

A few weeks later, Striker Eureka gets her own artwork: a vicious bulldog, fierce like Max never would be. Chuck carries Max around with pride (sometimes Max walks much slower than Chuck wants to go), but still, not a lot of people ask to pet him. Maybe they think he’s as vicious as the artwork makes him seem.

 

The whispering doesn’t stop, but Chuck learns to ignore it. It doesn’t really matter, anyway. He’s a Jaeger pilot; people are always going to whisper. 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave me a comment with your thoughts!


End file.
